Why Combat Sports are the best sports in the world
Let me begin this by prefacing that I’m a huge sports fan. I watch almost every major sport that there is and, although I may not follow them avidly, I find the pitting of teams and individuals in competition to be a breathtaking and honorous thing.
However, there is one major facet that sets combat sports far ahead of any other organized sport in the world- honesty. Watching two fighters; who have trained for months, followed rigorous exercise and diet schedules, watched countless hours of tape on their opponent and made multiple sacrifices to family and friends just to compete in one fight is about the most honest thing that someone can do for themselves.
In team sports, this honesty does not, and cannot exist for the simple fact that there is always someone to blame. You might show up. You might play your heart out making 12 of 12 freethrows and draining 8 three pointers, but if your teammates don’t show up, there is little you can do.
Fighting is not like that. When all the training and preparation is done, you are alone in that ring. You are the one that has to implement your game plan and defeat your opponenent. You are the one that has to make the best use of all the training you have put forward. You. Nobody else. That makes combat sports, in a word, honest.
Now, of course there are going to be excuses made after the match. MMA fighting has not progressed to the point that everyone is ok with a loss being a loss or a lackluster fight just being a slow fight with a victor at the end regardless. Those are completely seperate discussions from my current point. At the end of the day, whether you are Chuck Liddell knowing that this could be your last fight in the organization that you have been the poster boy of for years, or Bob Probert shedding the mitts to go one on one with Tie Domi a second time, or Nate “Galaxy Warrior” Campbell putting on the gloves for another fight just so your family can eat… well, that’s honesty, pure and simple, and in a dishonest world- that’s beautiful.
Related posts:
